“A philosophically deep, psychologically potent, and linguistically complex novel that reads at the pace of a thriller or romance novel.” – GAMBA Forest

Description

A pair of teenage siblings are abandoned on an Idaho farm where nothing will grow. Junior struggles to look after his younger sister – waking before dawn each morning to sell papers in the nearest town – but finds hope in whistling elaborate songs he imagines hold deeper meaning. His sister Tike, meanwhile, feels their mother’s absence deeply but rarely lets her emotions cloud her judgment. She takes comfort inventing secret lives for the models in her beloved fashion catalogues, reciting their inner monologues aloud. Above all, the siblings draw strength from each other – until the arrival of two strangers in town awakens new thoughts and desires, leading to an unthinkable act of passion that sends the pair spiraling apart.

From the author of Concrete Fever comes a haunting, heartfelt story of a family in the throes of change, a novel about faith and fantasy that examines the emptiness that resides within all of us, and the things we do to fill it.

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Insights

The husband-and-wife team spent a week living out of a campervan in Idaho’s Craters of the Moon & surrounding areas following the first draft’s completion. The experience significantly reshaped the novel.

A mythological character figures prominently in Dahlia Cassandra. While in Idaho, Nathaniel encountered the character’s name printed on the side of the RV in the adjacent campsite — a good omen for revisions.